Issues with ECHOLINK

It was one of those spur of the moment ideas…  Once I got my Android Smart Phone for Christmas and I figured out that there was an ECHOLINK APP for the phone then it made perfect sense to hook up my old ECHOLINK  NODE back up so I could link back to my 2m radio from my phone if I was not within range of normal 2m communications.

Back in late 2005/early 2006 I was doing this with the 2m radio being set to the OVMRC Repeater VE3TWO Frequency of 147.300.  This worked great and so I figured that if it worked last time then it should work this time…

Can anyone out there see where this is headed???  All the old parts were still intact.  My Rigblaster NOMIC sound card interface set up for my Yaesu FT2400 with the right cables.  This I know works as its the same setup up for when I operate APRS from home so its already configured correctly for receive and keying the radio up for transmit.

So it it works with the above gear and the computer like the sound card settings  then when I go with the following setup…

Only real difference is the soundcard settings and the software…

And thats were we sit at this time.  The mechanics of the setup work fantastic.  No issues with keying up the radio or off keying its works great.  However the audio quality on TX and RX is leaving much to be desired and it looks like this could take a while.  It seems that UI View/AGWPE for APRS is much easer to set sudio levels for than ECHOLINK is…

I have a new shack computer (hand me down as Liz is getting a new desktop) coming in in the near future so I hope the sound card config issues will be cleared up with a newer, faster computer to work with…  Failing that somewhere in a box, here in a corner of the basement is the very old desktop from 2005-2006 that might still even have the old software on it and perhaps I can dust that off and breath life back into it for the amateur radio community…

In the meantime if you follow Echolink keep a watch out for VA3QV-L which would be me trying again to get the audio levels set correctly (so link in and say hi and give me your opinion of how it sounds to you).  If you see VA3QV on the stations list then its either my Phone or my Acer Netbook with the internet stick and then just try and connect and say hi…

More on how this work in progress continues ….  Its all in the configuration…

73bob

Revisiting ECHOLINK

As a few of you know back in 2006 for a few months I sponsored the ECHOLINK Node VA3QV-L which was operating on the VE3TWO (Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club) Repeater Frequency of 147.300 (+).  The idea of the node was to see how many people would use it to link back into our Club Repeater and say HI to us while they were out of town.

It was a fairly simple setup consisting of a Rigblaster Nomic interface, a Yaesu FT2400 2m mobile radio along with a simple JPOLE antenna (10 foot mast) and a power supply strong enough to run the radio at the 5w setting.  The computer was an old desktop that was strong enought to run whatever version of windows that it had on it along with the ECHOLINK Software…

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Its main purpose was to see if there was the interest in such a service and if there was then the Club would set things up and run it themselves.

I ran the Node for about 4 months and then the Club took over the project which let me use the same equipment without the ECHOLINK Software as an APRS station once I had configured the AGWPE and UI View to work with the Rigblaster interface and the desktop.  This carried on for years until I replaced the Desktop with the Dell Laptop I am still using as the shack computer now…

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As you know the Dell although its getting tired has been operating on APRS as VA3QV for a few years now and doing great…  With the arrival of my new Android Smart Phone (as it has an ECHOLINK APP) I decided to get my old ECHOLINK Node of VA3QV-L back up and running just incase the need ever came up that I would want to link into my node from my Droid or from my Netbook using my Internet Stick.

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Right now the link radio is set up on 146.550 while I do the testing but its not on unless I am sitting there watching it while I am trying to get the configuration correct.

So far I am pleased by my attempts.  I have been able to get the software to key up the radio and even more importantly able to off key the radio.  From the Droid to the computer to a vhf handie being used as a monitor the audio levels seem to be fairly good.  From the vhf handie to the computer to the droid the audio levels seem to be be a bit high and so far I have not been able to get them set correctly yet.  Lowering the audio levels at the sound card and also lowering the volume on the radio has not seemed to fix it yet.  Its only a matter of time till everything gets set up right

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I wish I could remember how I did this 7 years ago…  Perhaps it will come to me…

More on how this works out…

73bob